Photographer Gemmy Woud-Binnendijk infuses the luscious beauty of Old Masters paintings into her fine art photography. Their timeless works go beyond passing inspiration, however, and lovers of art history will find direct influences in her work. In one photo a young girl, her head covering, clothing, and accessories are styled exactly like the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer. Other images are less straightforward in their inspiration, but they capture the garments, poses, and softness associated with oil painting.
Photography represents a relatively new career path for Woud-Binnendijk. She studied goldsmithing and multimedia design in school, but in March of 2016, she began seriously taking pictures. It was this endeavor that allowed her to exercise her “great passion” for drawing and painting; she does this by focusing on the lighting of each work. Combining two art techniques, chiaroscuro and sfumato (both developed during the Renaissance), Woud-Binnendijk builds depth and form by laying color and tones. The result creates “imperceptible transitions” of children and young adults who look exactly like paintings of that time period. If you didn’t realize they were photographs, you’d think that these were Renaissance-era paintings you had never seen before.
Woud-Binnendijk does a lot of post-processing in Photoshop. For that, she is mostly self-taught and watches online lessons from photographers like Brooke Shaden, Thomas Dodd, and Paul Apal’kin to learn their techniques.
Using Old Master painting principles like chiaroscuro and sfumato, photographer Gemmy Woud-Binnendijk creates fine art photography.
If you didn’t realize these were photographs, you might think they were oil paintings!
